Tag Archives: an honest review of ebates

In this Ebates Review I will address the questions “Is Ebates a Scam or Do You Really Get Cash Back?”

Is Ebates.com a scam or do you really get cash back? Before I get started on answering whether or not ebates is a scam please allow me to provide a little information as to how I found out about ebates.com. In late July of 2014, my lovely little lady told me about this shopping portal where you can receive cash back so I immediately used it to purchase an anniversary gift for her a day later. So what was the shopping portal that pays cash back? The shopping portal is Ebates.com! I spent a little over $83 and received a little over $5 into my Ebates accounts or a cash back credit of 6%. If there is one thing in life that I love that thing is getting a deal.

One thing that I absolutely hate is Christmas shopping in the living, breathing hell that I call the mall. Obnoxious people breathing and bumping into you, 2 hour long lines to simply purchase a damn shirt and what seems like forever to get out of the damn parking garage.

So how is it possible that Ebates can provide cash back to customers who choose to shop with the 1600+ online stores available through Ebates? It kind of sounds like ebates is some sort of scam. If you are thinking that ebates is a scam think again. In fact it’s so beautifully simply that I wish I had thought of the idea. Simply put, Ebates is an affiliate marketer. An affiliate simply drives traffic to an online store in exchange for a commission when a person who was referred to whatever store makes a purchase.

For example, I own a website that sell shoes. I decide to open an affiliate channel where I decide to pay marketers a 10% commission based upon the total sale. You as the affiliate send me a customer who purchases $100 worth of shoes. You just earned yourself $10 for simply referring that customer to my shoe site. Ebates acts as an affiliate for over 1600 stores and is able to provide customers cash back by simply sharing their affiliate commission with their user base. Of course, the amount of cash back you are able to receive is dependent upon how much the online store is paying Ebates but the nice thing is you can browse all stores and see exactly how much cash back you will receive if you decide to make a purchase or purchases through a particular online store.

With the Christmas season upon us and my utter hate for Christmas shopping at the mall I decided that I will from here on out do all of my shopping online. A logged into Ebates, browsed online stores and made my purchases. The very next day I received emails from Ebates stating that I received cash back credit from my various purchases. I spent $438.71 and received cash back in the amount of $37.36 or approximately an 8.5% rate of cash back return. What this means in dollars and cents is that I purchased $438.71 in merchandise but only paid $401.35 thanks to Ebates sharing their affiliate commissions with me.

So to answer the question directly….is Ebates a scam or do you really get cash back? The absolute bottom line is that Ebates in no way, shape or form is a scam but rather and ingenious company that indeed provides cash back to it’s users. There is nothing stopping a person from creating their own Ebates type shopping portal other than a butt load of money and time.

So why did I take the precious time out my day to create an ebates.com review post? Simply put, if you register with Ebates by clicking through MY EBATES LINK I earn $5 when you make a purchase. Sure $5 is not going to make me rich but $5 today is $5 more than I had yesterday.